“Saleem-
jan,
forgive me if I squeeze your hand too hard,
bachem
.” The pain was sharp and came with such force, I nearly doubled over.
“Are you very sick, Madar-
jan
?” Saleem asked quietly once we’d turned off our street.
“No,
bachem
. I’m sure it’s fine. Everything will be better once your father comes home.”
The look of doubt on Saleem’s face did not go unnoticed. My confidence was beginning to stutter and stumble. Samira had sensed it too. Every day, she retreated further into herself.
“Is the baby coming now?” Saleem questions were practical. He was so much like his father. I hadn’t realized just how much he’d grown in the last year.
“God forbid,
bachem
. It’s still too soon. Babies need nine months and nine days. Nine months and nine days,” I repeated, hearing my mother-in-law’s voice. There was much she’d shared with me before she’d left us, squeezing a lifetime of mothering into a few short years. She’d been the one to hurry the midwife to our home when my labor pains began with Saleem and Samira. She’d held my hand as I’d brought her grandchildren into the world. As the time grew near for this child, I felt her absence more and more.
With one hand on my belly and my eyes to the ground, I did not
notice the three men round the corner. We were just a hundred meters from the hospital entrance.
“Have you no self-respect, woman? Where is your
mahram
?” A glob of saliva landed at my feet. I took a step back. My son’s grip tightened on my fingers. I tried to position myself in front of him.
“This is my son. He is escorting me to the hospital. I am in severe pain and am in a . . . condition.”
Were these the men who had come for Mahmood? Would they know anything about his whereabouts? Before I dared to ask, a stick cracked on my shoulder. I doubled over, my hands covering my belly.
“Please don’t!” Saleem cried as he threw himself over my crouched form.
“Only loose women speak of such matters so openly! Have you no shame in front of your son? Where is his father? Or maybe he does not have one.”
My body quaked with rage, but I said nothing. I had to be practical too.
“We ask your forgiveness. Please let us be on our way,” I said through gritted teeth.
“Get back to your home. Go home with your boy and try to carry yourself as a respectful Muslim woman. You have no need for the hospital. Keep your woman troubles to yourself and spare your son the shame of being seen with you.”
Sharp pains pierced my pelvis and shoulder, but I got back on my feet. I pulled my bewildered son by the hand and turned around. After just one step, I felt a snap against my back. They’d lashed out twice more, for good measure. I squeezed Saleem’s hand, anticipating his reaction.
“Madar!” He was angry.
“Say nothing,
bachem
,” I whispered. “Let’s be on our way, my love. I am fine.”
Saleem’s face burned with fury. It hurt him to do nothing, even
if it was what I asked. In bringing him as my escort, I’d asked him to be the man of our home. In telling him to do nothing, I’d struck him back down to a boy. He supported me as I hobbled back home. For an Afghan, pride is harder to swallow than a bag of nails.
We stopped several times so I could catch my breath and rest against a wall. The way home was much longer than I remembered.
I LAY IN BED FOR THREE DAYS, PRAYING FOR GOD TO WATCH OVER
me and my child. The pains waxed and waned. Raisa stayed at the house until nightfall and made simple meals for the children. She put wet cloths on my forehead and made me drink water from a copper bowl engraved with a
sura
from the Qur’an. Saleem and Samira were somber and inseparable. They clung to each other like two lost travelers trying to keep warm on a bitterly cold night.
On the third day, Raisa burst into our home with fresh determination. She pulled a small pouch from her pocket and dropped a handful of small, dark seeds into a bowl. As she trickled boiling water into the bowl, she whispered prayers into the musky steam. Raisa sat behind me with her back to the wall, propped me up in her lap like an infant, and brought the bowl to my parched lips. I hadn’t the strength to ask what she had brewed and let the warmth make its way down my throat.
Raisa made a meal of stale bread and added more water to the meat broth we’d been drinking for four days. We had money, but there was no food to be found in the markets. Two days of rocket fire had sent all the street vendors and shop owners into hiding and left the city’s stomachs grumbling behind blackened windows.
I woke in the night, a sliver of moonlight catching my face. I took a deep breath and felt the baby stir. The pain in my back and flank had subsided. As I pushed myself to sit, my head spun just slightly, then steadied itself.
I thanked God.
Saleem looked at me with cautious optimism. He didn’t trust this world, and I couldn’t find the words to restore his faith. Maybe it was more than words I was lacking.
I sent Saleem next door to thank Raisa-
jan
for her help and to let her know she could tend to her own family without worry. Saleem returned with news that Abdul Rahim and Raisa would be coming over shortly.
I boiled water for tea and searched the cupboards for something to serve them. We would not have survived the week without their kindness.
They knocked on our front gate quietly. I met them in the courtyard and led them into the living room, eager to show Raisa that I was very much back on my feet.
“You should be resting still, Ferei-
jan,
” she chided.
“Allah bless your family with many happy years.” I hugged her tightly and kissed her cheeks. “I don’t know how to thank you for everything you’ve done. You’ve put me back on my feet and kept my children fed when you have a household of your own. Mahmood and I will never forget this.”
Raisa looked as if she had just taken a bite of something horrid and was waiting for the right moment to spit it out.
“Fereiba-
jan,
let us sit and talk,” Abdul Rahim said. “Saleem-
jan,
look after your sister for a bit,
bachem
.”
When Abdul Rahim, the gentle giant who lived next door, called Saleem
my boy,
I knew. Everything I needed to know was in that seemingly trivial endearment, the word he’d slipped in instinctively wanting to fill a sorry void. Abdul Rahim, a loving father, knew the needs of a young man. A young man needs someone to tousle his hair, to put a hand on his shoulder, to watch him fiddle with a broken watch.
A young man needs to be someone’s boy.
Bachem
.
No wonder Mahmood had respected our neighbors the way he did. He’d seen the goodness in them long before they’d needed to show it.
My son was without a father. My children were without their father.
Saleem, my obedient boy, headed off to sit with Samira. I knew he would listen in and I did nothing about it. I couldn’t protect any of us from our reality. I sat down and let Abdul Rahim tell me what he needed to tell me.
“My brother works for the . . . two weeks ago . . . taken by Taliban . . . disagreed with their actions . . . man of ideals . . . brave . . . workers found a body . . . note in the pocket . . . forgive me for sharing this with you . . .”
Raisa wrapped her arms around me. She sobbed, her heavy bosom heaving. I’d known for weeks, but some truths need to be said out loud before they can be believed.
Mahmood would never come back. We’d had our final moment together just a few feet from where I sat. He’d told me everything he needed to in that last moment, his fate written on his face. He had known from the moment the men entered our home.
Saleem slipped back into the living room and walked over to Abdul Rahim who sat with shoulders slumped, his hands folded between his knees.
“Kaka-
jan
?” he said.
Abdul Rahim met his gaze.
“My father—he is not coming back?”
It was not a boy’s question. It was the question of a young man who needed to know what to expect of tomorrow and what tomorrow would expect of him.
I HAD TO GET MY FAMILY OUT OF KABUL
.
With Mahmood gone, there was nothing left for us. We would almost certainly starve once the money ran out. The imminent arrival of our third child complicated matters.
Samira had not spoken since the afternoon of Raisa and Abdul Rahim’s visit. She gave her answers in nods and gestures. I spoke softly with her, trying to coax the words from her lips, but Samira remained silent.
I found Saleem in our bedroom, staring at his father’s belongings. Unaware of my presence, he touched the pants, brought a shirt to his cheek, and laid the pieces out on the floor as if trying to imagine his father in it. He picked up Mahmood’s watch from the nightstand and turned it over in his hand. He slipped it on his wrist and pulled his sleeve over it. It was a private moment between father and son, so I snuck back down the hall before he realized I’d been watching.
My son thought I was too wrapped up in my own grief to know what he suffered, but I observed it all. I saw him kick the tree behind
our house until he fell into a tearful heap, his toes so bruised and swollen that he winced with each step for a week. I held him when he allowed me, but if I started to speak, he would slip away. It was too soon.
If I thought of my last exchange with Mahmood, so did Saleem. I could see the remorse on his face as clearly as I felt it in my heart. We would have done things differently, Saleem and I. We would have had much more to say.
From what Abdul Rahim was able to gather, the local Taliban had decided to make an example of Mahmood Waziri. The rest of the family would not be targeted, he believed, but no one could say with any certainty. Even in the light of day, there was little certainty in Kabul. The cloak of night made all things possible.
I couldn’t bear to have my children out of my sight. I sent Saleem on errands to the marketplace only when I was truly desperate. Just one month after the news of Mahmood’s assassination, my belly began to ache. At first, I thought it might be the balmy winter air bringing a cramp, but as I walked from room to room, the familiar pains became clearer.
I paced the room, my lips pursed and my steps slow.
“Nine months, nine days . . . nine months, nine days . . .” I repeated softly.
Just a few hours later, Raisa coaxed my third child into the world. I named him Aziz.
“Saleem and Samira,” I managed to get out. “Meet your father’s son.”
AZIZ WOULD NEED TO GAIN SOME WEIGHT BEFORE WE COULD
venture out of Kabul. As I nursed him, his face started to take on his father’s features: the squint of his eyes, the dip in his chin, the curl of his ears.
Abdul Rahim kept a watchful eye on the widowed Waziri family. He invited Saleem to sit with him when he returned from school. I don’t know what they talked about, but Saleem always came home pensive. I was grateful my son had Abdul Rahim to turn to.
Abdul Rahim and Raisa agreed that it was best for us to leave. We had no family to help us. I feared my son would be swallowed by the Taliban, and as a woman, there was little I could do to help us survive.
“We’re going to leave,” I told my neighbors. “I have no choice but to get my children out of Kabul. Their stomachs are empty, their lips parched. There’s nothing for us here.”
Raisa nodded in agreement.
“There’s no telling if things will get better. They could get worse. As much as I hate to see you go, I can’t bear to watch you stay with things like this. If Mahmood-
jan,
God give him peace, were with you, it would be different. But like this, Kabul is worse than a prison for you.”
“I’m going to need your help.”
Abdul Rahim had nodded. He’d been anticipating this conversation.
THREE MONTHS AFTER AZIZ WAS BORN, I GATHERED MY CHILDREN
and packed two small bags with what I thought we would need most: clothing, a parchment envelope with a dozen family pictures, and whatever food we had left. I’d said nothing to the children until two days before we were to leave. Saleem looked resentful that he’d been kept in the dark. We lived in the same space, with the same dismal thoughts, and yet, for the better part of our days, we were confounded by each other. We were a family beheaded and floundered around as such.
“What if they find out we’re leaving?” Saleem’s voice was quiet with fear.
“They won’t find out,” I promised. I had no other way of answering. His expression flat, Saleem held my gaze for a few seconds too long. He had seen through me.
I told myself things would be better once we escaped Kabul’s toxic air.
I sent word to my father that we would be traveling to Herat. I wanted to see him once more before we set off. But Padar-
jan
was a man who preferred to live in the comforts of yesterday. The letter I got back was nothing more than I had come to expect from my father. The orchard was in such bad shape I would hardly recognize it, he said. Armies of beetles had tunneled through the wood. He had taken to sleeping some nights in the grove, hoping his presence would scare them away but they were quite brazen. The past winter had been especially harsh and he would need to do much coaxing if he wanted to see even a single basket of apricots this year. They were more delicate than children, he believed. It saddened him that he could not do more for us now, but he looked forward to seeing us on our return.
People have different ways of saying good-bye, especially when it is forever.
A FEW WEEKS EARLIER, ABDUL RAHIM HAD KNOCKED ON OUR
door and handed me a large envelope. Raisa was with him. Her moist eyes belied the encouraging smile on her face.
The passports Mahmood had purchased were enclosed, even his own. I had touched his photograph, the size of my thumb, and hurt anew that he was not here to make this journey with us. I made the painful decision to ask Abdul Rahim to sell it back to the Embassy for whatever he would give. There was no room for sentimentality. Now the time had come to leave.